F828 Sample Images

Review First Posted: 08/15/2003, Updated: 02/05/04

Digital Cameras - Sony CyberShot DSC-F828 Test Images

I've begun including links in our reviews to a Thumber-generated
index page for the test shots. The Thumber data includes a
host of information on the images, including shutter speed, ISOsetting,
compression setting, etc. Rather than clutter the page below with
*all*that detail, we're posting the Thumber index so only those
interested inthe information need wade through it!

Very nice color, with excellent detail and resolution,
but a contrast adjustment is required for best results.

The extreme tonal range of this image makes it a tough shot
for many digicams, which is precisely why I set it up this
way, and why I shoot it with no fill flash or reflector to
open the shadows. The object is to hold both highlight and
shadow detail without producing a "flat" picture
with muddy colors, and the DSC-F828 handled the challenge
pretty well.

All of the shots here were captured using
the F828's "real" color mode, which produced more
natural-looking skin tones than did its "normal"
color option. (See Far Field and Davebox tests below for examples
comparing results from the Real and Normal color modes.) The
shot at right was taken with no exposure compensation adjustment
at all, very unusual for this test. I also used the camera's
low contrast setting
in the example at right, to help tame the harsh lighting.
(The 828's normal contrast setting
produced rather dark shadows and over-bright highlights, see
the side by side comparison below to see the difference between
the two.) Midtone detail is pretty good, with good detail
in the shadows, and only the strongest highlights lost.
I chose the Auto white balance,
though the Daylight setting
also produced good results.

Skin tones are about right, and the blue flowers in the bouquet
and Marti's pants are only slightly darker than in real life.
(Many digicams have trouble with this blue, but the F828 gets
just about the right amount of purplish tint in them.) Overall
color looks good throughout the rest of the frame as well,
with good saturation. Resolution is excellent, with a lot
of fine detail visible throughout the frame, even in the fabric
texture of the flowers. Shadow detail is high as well, with
reasonably low image noise. (Given its 8-megapixel sensor,
I was expecting to see quite a lot of noise in the F828's
images, but felt that in this instance at least, it wasn't
all that bad. There's more noise here than I've seen in images
from the best 5 megapixel cameras, but not an amount that
I'd consider to be a problem. - What constitutes "acceptable"
image noise is very much in the eye of the beholder though,
so you may feel differently.)

Perhaps most interesting is how well Sony's RGB+E sensor technology
preserves shape and shading in the red flowers. Most digicams
tend to either under-saturate these, or lose much of the detail.
The improved color accuracy of the RGB+E sensor appears to
do an excellent job of preserving detail that others cameras
typically lose.

Normal
Contrast

Low
Contrast

Contrast was high with
the camera's default contrast setting, under the
deliberately harsh lighting of this test.

The F828's low contrast
adjustment moderated the effect of the lighting
considerably, holding onto somewhat more highlight
detail, while opening up the shadows nicely.

To view an entire exposure series from zero to +1.0 EV, see
files F828OUTAP0r.HTM through F828OUTAP3r.HTM on the thumbnail
index page. (Files with "LC" in the name, such
as F828OUTALCP0r.HTM were shot with the contrast adjustment
set to "low".)

Results in this close-up shot are similar
to the wider shot above, and the F828's 7x lens does a great
job of preventing any distortion of Marti's features. The
shot at right was again shot with no exposure compensation
adjustment. This time though, I shot with the normal contrast
setting only, which resulted in good midtones, but with darker
shadows and brighter highlights. Detail is outstanding, with
sharp details in Marti's face and hair. (Probably more than
Marti would care to see full-screen.;-) Perhaps because of
the higher contrast and resulting darker shadows, there's
more noise present in the shadows here. Still not what I'd
call bad, but clearly more noticeable than on the best 5 megapixel
cameras.

To view the entire exposure series from zero to +0.7 EV, see
files F828FACAP0r.HTM through F828FACAP2r.HTM on the thumbnail
index page.

Good intensity and coverage with the built-in flash at the
high intensity setting.

The F828's built-in flash illuminated the subject well with
the High intensity setting, but
the Normal and Low
settings underexposed somewhat. Color is pretty good, though
the incandescent lighting results in a slight orange cast
on the background, some of which can be seen in Marti's features
somewhat. The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode combines the flash
with a longer exposure, allowing more ambient light into the
image. Once again, I found the best results with the High
intensity setting, as the Normal
and Low settings both left the
image too dark for my tastes. The longer exposure results
in a more pronounced warm cast, but color is still pleasing
overall.

(Note that this was shot with my new indoor test setup. The
painted backdrop is slightly darker than was the wall in the
original set, which may cause some cameras to require less
exposure compensation than has been typical in the past. The
overall light level and coloration are virtually identical
to the old indoor shot though, to maintain compatibility with
previous reviews.)

This shot is always a very tough test of a camera's white balance
capability, given the strong, yellowish color cast of the
household incandescent bulbs used for the lighting. The F828's
Manual white balance produced
excellent results here. The Auto
and Incandescent settings resulted
in warmer color casts, but some people may actually prefer
the results from the Incandescent setting, as being more faithful
to the color of the original lighting. The main shot was taken
with a +0.7 EV exposure compensation adjustment, and once
again, all images were shot in the camera's "real"
color mode. Color is accurate with good saturation, and image
noise is "moderate" - higher than the lowest I've
seen on this shot, but not yet to the point that I'd consider
really objectionable.

These images were shot at ISO 100, as that's about the lowest
I'm comfortable going on this shot, given how long the exposure
times become below that point. As noted, image noise here
is higher than the best I've seen, and I'm a little on the
fence as to how I feel about it. - While I'd definitely like
to see less, I think I'd be happy with the results here, if
I owned the F828. As I've often said though, this is a very
subjective area, so everyone should look at the images closely
themselves, and see how they feel about the noise levels.
- See the results shot at ISO 64 below though, as the noise
level there is indeed a good bit lower.

To see the entire exposure series from zero to +1.3 EV, see
files F828INMP0r.HTM through F828INMP4r.HTM on the thumbnail
index page.

ISO Series:
Noise on the F828 is overall a bit better than I'd expected,
given its 8 megapixel sensor. At ISO 64, the image noise is
low indeed, increasingly steadily with increasing ISO, reaching
very high levels at ISO 800. (Keep in mind though, that, since
this is an 8 megapixel sensor, one trick for shooting at very
high ISO would be to just resample the images to a lower resolution.
This has the effect of averaging-out the noise between adjacent
pixels, possibly bringing the noise down to acceptable levels.
This obviously doesn't work if you really need the full 8
megapixels of resolution, but if you're going to be printing
images at smaller sizes for publication, you can easily get
away with cutting the resolution down to 2-3 megapixels or
so, for the sake of attaining lower noise levels.)

For this shot, I preferred the slightly cool cast of the Manual
white balance setting to the slightly warm tone of the Auto
white balance. (The Daylight setting
resulted in a warmer, more yellow color cast.) Resolution
is very high, with a lot of fine detail visible in the tree
limbs and front shrubbery. (Keep in mind that the F828's 8.0-megapixel
CCD really stretches the limits of this poster as a test target.
Even though the poster was made from a 500MB scan of a 4x5
negative shot with a tack-sharp lens, the F828 extracts about
all the detail that's to be found here.) Details are also
sharp from corner to corner, with only the slightest softness
in the top left corner.

This image is shot at infinity to test
far-field lens performance. NOTE that this image cannot be
directly compared to the other "house" shot, which
is a poster, shot in the studio. The rendering of detail in
the poster will be very different than in this shot, and color
values (and even the presence or absence of leaves on the
trees!) will vary in this subject as the seasons progress.
In general though, you can evaluate detail in the bricks,
shingles and window detail, and in the tree branches against
the sky. Compression artifacts are most likely to show in
the trim along the edge of the roof, in the bricks, or in
the relatively "flat" areas in the windows.

This is my ultimate "resolution shot,"
given the infinite range of detail in a natural scene like
this, and the DSC-F828 performed exceptionally well, easily
surpassing the best 6 megapixel cameras I've tested. Detail
is outstanding in the tree limbs over the roof, as well as
in fine foliage in front of the house, with great definition
in the tree bark patterns and leaf details. Details are also
sharp throughout the frame, without any obvious softness in
the corners. Like most digicams, the F828 loses most of the
detail in the bright white paint surrounding the bay window,
a trouble spot for many digicams. Detail is strong in the
shadow area above the front door though (perhaps helped slightly
by the porch light seen in the photo), evidence of the DSC-F828's
excellent dynamic range. Contrast was high with the default
setting, so I snapped this series with the camera's low contrast
option. The table below shows a standard resolution and quality
series, followed by ISO, sharpness, saturation, and contrast
series.

Saturation Series:The shots below show the effect of the saturation adjustment
of the F828, as well as the difference between its "Normal"
and "Real" color settings. The "Normal"
color setting is more saturated, a little bit too much so
for my personal taste, but many people will likely prefer
it. The "Real" color option produces colors more
representative of the original scene.

Contrast Series:The F828's contrast adjustment works exactly as you'd
expect it to, cutting or boosting contrast, without affecting
either exposure or color rendering as I've often found to
be the case with such controls on other cameras.

I routinely shoot this series of images to show the range of
field of view for each camera, with the lens at full wide
angle, at maximum telephoto (7x,
in this case), and at full telephoto with the digital zoom
enabled. The DSC-F828's lens is equivalent to a 28-200mm zoom
on a 35mm camera. That corresponds to a good wide angle to
a pretty substantial telephoto. (Most cameras' zooms only
go to about 35mm at the wide end, so the extra coverage of
a 28mm equivalent is very welcome for anyone working close
quarters.) Following are the results at each zoom setting.

This shot is often a tough test for digicams, as the abundance
of blue in the composition frequently tricks white balance
systems into producing a warm color balance. The F828's white
balance system did very well with it though, the Auto
white balance setting surprisingly producing the best results
overall, though the Daylight
setting produced similar color. (The Manual
setting was a bit too cool.) Skin tones are pretty good, though
a hint warm, and the blue robe looks nearly right, without
any purplish tints in the shadows. Resolution is excellent
in the embroidery of the blue robe and on the red vest, but
the camera's 8.0-megapixel CCD is easily capable of showing
more detail than this poster has in it. (The original data
file for this poster was only 20MB.)

A very small macro area with excellent detail in the dollar
bill. The flash is blocked by the lens at closest approach,
however, and there's quite a bit of barrel distortion present
(although not obvious in this shot).

The F828 performed very well in the macro category, capturing
a minimum area of only 2.11 x 1.58 inches (54 x 40 millimeters).
Resolution is very high, and detail is excellent in the dollar
bill. However, the coins and brooch are soft due to the very
short shooting distance. There's a lot of softness in the
corners, particulalry on the left side of the frame. Also,
while it's not obvious in this shot, there's quite a bit of
barrel distortion present, due to the lens having to be used
at its maximum wide angle setting. Partly because maximum
macro is only available at the widest-angle zoom setting,
the F828's long lens barrel blocks the flash
here, making it ineffective for this close-up shot. - Plan
on using external lighting for the closest macro shots.

The F828's Manual white balance
setting did the best job here, with a good white value in
the mini resolution target and large color block. However,
the Auto and Daylight
settings resulted in warmer images. Exposure is about right,
and the F828 has no trouble distinguishing the subtle tonal
variations of the Q60 target. The large color blocks look
pretty good, with about accurate saturation and color. The
shadow area of the charcoal briquettes shows great detail,
with low noise. Following are ISO, contrast, sharpness, saturation,
and effects series.

Excellent low-light performance, with great color balance,
and accurate framing and focusing in total darkness, but more
visible noise than the best 5 megapixel models.

The F828 did very well in my low-light tests, offering full
manual exposure control and a maximum exposure time of 30
seconds. The F828 also offers Sony's outstanding infrared-based
Night Framing and Hologram Autofocus options for excellent
framing and focusing capability, even in complete darkness.

The F828 produced clear, bright, usable images down to the 1/16
foot-candle (0.67 lux) limit of my test, with good color at
all five ISO settings. The F828's Noise Reduction system did
an good job of keeping noise in check, but I noticed more
black speckles in the images caused by the dark-frame subtraction
noise reduction process' handling of hot pixels. As I've been
finding with other digicams, the normal noise measurement
(standard deviation of luminance) does a poor job of characterizing
what's going on in the F828's images. Even though the standard
deviation is lower than high-end five-megapixel camera models
(such as the Canon PowerShot G5), the noise in the 828's images
is more visually distracting, and a fair bit of fine detail
is lost to the noise-suppression processing. The results aren't
bad, far from it, they're just not as good as I've seen from
the category-leading 5 megapixel cameras.

As more 8-megapixel cameras make it onto the market, we'll see
how the 828 stacks up against them. For now though, it appears
that the jump from 5 to 8 megapixels may well be the point
at which there are some noticeable tradeoffs to be made between
resolution and image noise.

The table below shows the best exposure I was able to obtain
for each of a range of illumination levels. Images in this
table (like all our sample photos) are untouched, exactly
as they came from the camera.

(Note: If you'd like to use a light meter to check
light levels for subjects you might be interested in
shooting, a light level of 1 foot-candle corresponds
to a normal exposure of 2 seconds at F/2.8 and ISO 100.)

1fc
11lux

1/2fc
5.5lux

1/4fc
2.7lux

1/8fc
1.3lux

1/16fc
0.67lx

ISO
64

2 secs
F2.2

4 secs
F2.2

8 secs
F2.2

15 secs
F2.2

30 secs
F2.2

ISO
100

1.6 secs
F2.2

3 secs
F2.2

7 secs
F2.2

13 secs
F2.2

25 secs
F2.2

ISO
200

1 secs
F2.2

2 secs
F2.2

4 secs
F2.2

8 secs
F2.2

20 secs
F2.2

ISO
400

1/ 2 secs
F2.2

1 secs
F2.2

2 secs
F2.2

4 secs
F2.2

10 secs
F2.2

ISO
800

1/ 4 secs
F2.2

1/ 2 secs
F2.2

1 secs
F2.2

2.5 secs
F2.2

5 secs
F2.2

"Night
Shot"
scene
mode

1.3 secs
F2.2

2 secs
F2.2

2 secs
F2.2

2 secs
F2.2

2 secs
F2.2

Flash Range Test

A powerful flash, only very slight falloff at the 14 foot
limit of our test.

In my testing, the F828's flash illuminated the test target
all the way out to 14 feet, without any significant decrease
in intensity. (And the 828 doesn't resort to the trick of
"secretly" boosting ISO to get greater flash range
performance, as is done by many digicams these days.) Below
is the flash range series, showing the results with distances
from eight to 14 feet from the target.

Very high resolution, 1,600- 1,650 lines of "strong
detail." Average barrel distortion, higher than average
pincushion though.

The F828 performed very well on the "laboratory" resolution
test chart. It started showing artifacts in the test patterns
at resolutions as low as 1,200 lines per picture height, in
both horizontal and vertical directions, but I found "strong
detail" out to at least 1,600 lines vertically, and perhaps
1,650 lines in the horizontal direction. "Extinction"
of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,950 lines.

Optical distortion on the F828 is lower than average at the
wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 0.7 percent
barrel distortion, very good for a 28mm zoom, but still more
than I like to see. (Barrel and pincushion distortion are
pet peeves of mine. Most digicam lenses show 0.8-1.0 percent
barrel distortion at the wide angle end, so it's not fair
to single out any one manufacturer's cameras, but I'd really
like to see all lenses improve in this area.) Interestingly
though, the F828 gets better quickly as you zoom away from
the full wide-angle setting. At an equivalent focal length
of only 33.5mm, the barrel distortion drops to only 0.25 percent,
an excellent figure by any measure. As usual, the extreme
telephoto end did a little better, as I measured a 0.32 percent
pincushion distortion there.

Chromatic aberration looks to be higher than average, showing
about nine or ten pixels of fairly strong coloration on either
side of the target lines. (This distortion is visible as a
very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges
of the field of view on the resolution target.)

In my test shooting, I found some evidence of the "purple
fringe" problem, but seemingly less than some other reviewers
did. (This is an optical phenomena that produces bright purple
fringes around the edges of very bright objects in the image.
It's apparently caused by some combination of conventional
chromatic aberration and diffraction by the microlenses on
the surface of the CCD itself.) I was able to trigger the
purple fringe problem in the studio, particularly with very
strong light sources, at relatively close range, and with
the lens set to its wide angle position and maximum aperture.
For whatever reason though, I saw little or no evidence of
it in most of my test images. Not to say that the problem
isn't there, just that the range of shooting conditions I
worked under didn't seem to trigger it to the extent seen
by some reviewers. For what it's worth, it does seem to require
a pretty severe light overload to trigger the phenomena.

The F828's electronic "optical" viewfinder (EVF)
is very accurate, showing 99+ percent frame accuracy
at both wide angle and telephoto zoom settings. The LCD
monitor is also very accurate, since it shows the same
view, just on a larger screen. Given that I like LCD
monitors to be as close to 100 percent accuracy as possible,
the F828's LCD monitor is essentially perfect in this
regard. Flash distribution is fairly even at wide angle,
with just a little falloff at the corners and edges of
the frame. At telephoto, flash distribution is a little
more uniform.